Alparan flagship Barbarossa
The Barbarossa was the lead and one of only two ships of her class completed for the Alparan Imperial-and-Royal Star Navy. An unusual representative of the modified Siegfried types introduced in order to fit the Kaiserin’s order that no new ships of that type could be produced, she packed the speed and maneuverability of a cruiser into her hull at the expense of some armour protection. Referred to as ‘''Brynhildr’s shadow’, Barbarossa was notable through her career as being the flagship of Alparan fleet admiral Wilhelmina Braunschweig Ingenohl von Friedeburg, ''Kaiserin Thea von Kreutzer’s close confidante and tactical advisor. Under command of the renowned captain Felix Luckner von Goldenlöwe, she would serve with distinction alongside the Alparan navy’s flagship throughout both their careers. She would narrowly avoid destruction at the Seventh Battle of Ishtar when she came under fire from the [[Accord battleship Bloodletter|Accord battleship Bloodletter]]; only the timely intervention of the Brynhildr, the XXII Destroyer Flotilla, and the Consortium cruisers Atago and Mamiya prevented her loss. Design Barbarossa’s design study started at the same time as that of the Siegfried class, as an option to further enhance the mobility of the design by sacrificing some armour protection. In that regard, it could be taken that Siegfried was a ‘fast battleship’ and Barbarossa was a ‘large fast cruiser’. However, she shared the large well-developed command and control facilities of that class in order to adequately control the ballooning size of fleet engagements. Like the Siegfried''s, ''Barbarossa also incorporated deflective armour plating to reduce her susceptibility to ballistic impact and also deflect and dissipate beam cannons. This made her thinner armour plating almost as effective as that of Siegfried, herself not as well-armoured as some of the Alparan battleships of the line (the Grendel''s had 45cm-thick plates, with an effective thickness of well over 1 km). Armament The main armament of ''Barbarossa was her twelve 30.5cm neutron beam cannons, located in recessed fixed mountings in the forward hull. These were newer cannons compared to the Siegfried''s, boasting a new particle accelerator design and large-scale directional gravity fields to make them far more effective. These new technologies were also implemented into her secondary armament of 10.5cm and 8.8cm flak guns, giving her equal point defenses to her more heavily armed sisters. Overall, despite her small numbers of armament compared to Terran ships such as the ''Inextinguishable and Chimaera, she retained superior shot-for-shot firepower. Barbarossa was also outfitted with large numbers of small-calibre electron beam cannons, lasers, micro-missile swarm launchers, and sextuple 53.3cm torpedo launchers along her sides to defend her from small fighters and to surprise vessels of equal size. Her torpedoes were based on Consortium technology, and could correspondingly be launched at much further ranges than conventional torpedoes such as those in use with the Alliance. History Early Service Third War in Heaven Related Ships * Alparan flagship Brynhildr - The basis for Barbarossa's design. * [[Alparan flagship Zähringen|Alparan flagship Zähringen]] - Barbarossa's only sister-ship to be commissioned. Her primary difference was that her hull was painted a gleaming black as opposed to red. Category:Alparan Empire Category:Alparan Starships Category:Starships Category:Individual Starships Category:Battleships Category:Battlecruisers Category:Flagships